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Ralph Maughan

Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is President of the Western Watersheds Project.

14 Responses to Wolves of B.C. Coast prefer salmon over deer

There’s a really gorgeous book and DVD on the salmon-eating wolves of British Columbia called The Last Wild Wolves, Ghosts of the Rain Forest. The author is Ian McAllister. It’s from U. of California Press–ISBN 978-0-520-25473-2. The photos are wonderful, and the accounts of low tech research methods (no radio collars) are worth pondering. I heartily recommend it.

Interesting, I’ve seen one of those documentaries, something to do with a ‘ghost bear’ (white grizzlies), it mentioned grey wolves eating salmon brains and leaving carrion for bears.

“Easier? Why I thought wolves from Canada were killing machines that took down anything — the bigger the better”

According to a lovely little article I found (ref. Wolf Song Alaska) on Wolf Management in Canada, trappers from areas like Alberta and British Columbia are taught to kill the healthy wolves (because their pelts sell for higher prices) and leave the old/injured/mangy ones.

Take a look at Nootka Island on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Wolves there have extripated the deer on that island and learned to hunt the seals and sea lions. They watch the beach for sunning marine mammals and then launch a pincer movement to cut off the seaward escape. What was that about the “mother of invention”???

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‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."